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Tuesday, 31 January 2012

Giovanni was born to an impoverished rural family in Castelnuovo, Piedmont. Patronage from clerics allowed him to be ordained priest in 1841. He devoted himself to improve the life and education of the many homeless peasant teenage boys in and around Turin, hundred of whom were attracted to the city by the Industrial Revolution.

In 1864 he founded the Salesian Fathers religious order. At Bosco's death the Salesian "oratoires" numbered about 250. He was beatified in 1924, and declared a Saint of the Catholic church in 1934.

Bosco is one of the many homosexuals who found in the Catholic church a family and a "mission". Quite possibly he had an attraction to young boys which he succeeded in sublimating into a socially useful undertaking.

(From Aldrich & Wetherspoon, "Who's Who in Gay and Lesbian History from Antiquity to WWII")

Anna Blaman, pen name for Johanna Petronella Vrugt (1905-1960), not only was the most important lesbian writer in the 1950s, but also Holland's major woman author of the era. As an intellectual, a public figure, and an independent woman who did not conceal her homosexuality, she was of great importance to Dutch lesbian emancipation.

In her work, however, she expressed a pessimistic view of life, which partially was influenced by French Existentialism. Blaman's protagonists, including the lesbian Berthe in her best-known novel Eenzaam Avontuur (Lonely Adventure [1948]), experience the futility of human existence, an inadequacy in making contact and in knowing and understanding their partners. This existential loneliness is, in Blaman's view, typical of both heterosexual and homosexual individuals."

Died this day

Keith Norton (1941 - 2010 )Canadian
Politician / Lawyer

Sodomy in history, January

1729 — A Prussian baker is executed for fellating another man who later died, according to the court, of "exhaustion."

1913 — Oregon amends its sodomy law to include any act of "sexual perversity," thus including not only oral sex, put any other form of erotica. The penalty also is increased from a maximum of 5 years to a maximum of 15.

1961 — The New Mexico House of Representatives votes 37-28 in favor of a revised criminal code that includes a repeal of the state’s sodomy law. This is the first vote by a U.S. legislative body to repeal a sodomy law. This bill refers to sodomitical relations as "variant sexual practice," something unique in U.S. history.

1978 — The Louisiana Supreme Court overturns a sodomy conviction because of testimony given in the trial trying to show that the defendant was Gay. The Court said that whether the defendant was Gay or not was irrelevant under the state’s sodomy law.

Died this day

Author, anthropologist, and folklorist during the time of the Harlem Renaissance. Of Hurston's four novels and more than 50 published short stories, plays, and essays, she is best known for her 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, a book heralded as “one of the most poetic works of fiction by a black writer in the first half of the 20th century, and one of the most revealing treatments in modern literature of a woman’s quest for satisfying life.”

Sodomy in history, January 26th

1973 — A California appellate court rules that the First Amendment does not protect the right of actors to engage in sodomy or oral copulation for a film.

1996 — The Tennessee Court of Appeals strikes down the state’s sodomy law on privacy grounds. The Tennessee Supreme Court declines to review the decision and asks the Court of Appeals to publish its decision to make it precedent.

1999 — A New York court rules that the state’s prostitution law covers homosexual prostitution.

Tuesday, 24 January 2012

Born this day

Hadrian was an accomplished military ruler, but owes his fame more to his success as a wise and civilized leader and administrator, who helped to stabilize the Roman Empire - and for his renowned devotion to his lover, Antinous. After his young lover drowned in the Nile in 130, the Emperor was publicly overcome with grief, and declared the young man to be a god, and founded an Egytpian city, Antinoopolis, in his honour.

Dutch-born Catholic priest and writer who authored 40 books about spirituality. The results of a Christian Century magazine survey conducted in 2003 indicate that Nouwen's work was a first choice of authors for Catholic and mainline Protestant clergy. One of his most famous works is Inner Voice of Love, his diary from December 1987 to June 1988 during one of his most serious bouts with clinical depression.

Nouwen is thought to have struggled with his sexuality. "Although his homosexuality was known by those close to him, he never publicly claimed a homosexual identity."

The greatest and noblest pleasure which men can have in this world is to discover new truths; and the next is to shake off old prejudices.

Frederick II, also known as Frederick the Great, ruled as King of Prussia from 1740-1786. Through innovative military tactics and tolerant domestic policies, King Frederick united previously disconnected territories on opposite ends of the Holy Roman Empire into a cohesive kingdom with Prussia.

Frederick's predecessor, his father, presided over both his kingdom and his family without compassion. In 1730, when Frederick was 18 years old, he planned a getaway to England with Lieutenant Katte. Before the two men could depart, they were arrested and condemned to death for desertion. Frederick I had Katte executed in his son's presence. Frederick II escaped death and was sentenced to prison.

Frederick II received a royal pardon six months into his sentence. He ascended to the throne in 1739. He immediately began expanding Prussia's territory during the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748). During the first stage of this war, the First Silesian War (1740-1742), Frederick II captured the rich Austrian city of Silesia.

Regarded as one of the greatest tactical geniuses of all time, Frederick II used advanced techniques such as the oblique order to overwhelm foes who outnumbered Prussian forces. During his reign, Austria, France, Russia, Saxony and Sweden were allied against him as part of the Diplomatic Revolution. Frederick the Great's invasion of Saxony in 1756 initiated the Seven Years' War. Though allied with only Great Britain and Hanover, Prussia prevailed when the anti-Prussian coalition collapsed in 1763. Frederick II's ability to retain Silesia during this battle solidified Prussia's status as a power.

In addition to his military successes, which included the annexation of part of Poland in 1772, Frederick II modernized much of Prussia and fostered economic and artistic growth in his kingdom. State revenues doubled as he simultaneously promoted philosophy and the arts. A musician, Frederick the Great played the transverse flute and composed 122 sonatas and four symphonies.

Disagreeing with Machiavelli's ruthless "ends justify the means" philosophy of rule, Frederick the Great ran his kingdom according to the more modern ethical code he laid out in the "Anti-Machiavel" (1739). Under his reign, Frederick II abolished torture and corporeal punishment and provided religious freedom.

Born this day

Politician, who became the first openly gay or lesbian person elected to public office, when she won election to the Massasuchetts House of Representatives in November 1974, serving two terms from 1975 - 1978. In March 1977, she was part of the first delegation of gay men and lesbians invited to the White House under President Jimmy Carter to discuss issues important to the LGBT community.

Ondrej Nepala(1951 – 1989) Czech
Figure Skater

Gary Frisch(1969 – 2007) UK
Businessman

Al Start (1969 – ) UK
Singer

Saint's day

Saint Walpurga, UK
Abbess, reputed to have grown a beard to avoid being given married off in an unwanted arranged marriage.

Died this day

Lytton Strachey (1880 - 1932) UK
Author / Poet / Critic

William Alexander Percy(1885 - 1942 ) US
Lawyer / Poet

Sandro Penna(1906 - 1977 ) Italian
Poet

James Beard(1903 - 1985 ) US Chef and food writer. The central figure in the story of the establishment of a gourmet American food identity, Beard was an eccentric personality who brought French cooking to the American middle and upper classes in the 1950s. Beard noted in his memoirs that he knew by the time that he was seven, that he was gay,

Billy Tipton (1914 - 1989 ) US
Pianist / Saxophonist

Peer Raben(1940 - 2007) German
Composer

Sodomy in history, January

1915 — A California appellate court upholds the lewd and lascivious acts conviction of a man and ponders human sexuality in a long paragraph.

1952 — The Montana Supreme Court overturns a sodomy conviction because of testimony of other alleged sexual partners of the defendant. In addition, the only evident sex was spanking, something not covered by the sodomy law.

1958 — The District of Columbia Court of Appeals rules that charges of homosexual indecency must be corroborated more stringently than charges of heterosexual

1966 — The Minnesota Supreme Court reverses a sodomy conviction because the public was excluded from the trial and, in dictum, states that a husband and wife are not immune from prosecution for sodomy. indecency.

1970 — A federal court in Texas strikes down the Texas sodomy law as overly broad in its application but, a year later, the U.S. Supreme Court reverses on a technicality.

Died this day

Max Adrian (1903 - 1973 ) UK
Actor / Singer

Morris Kight(1919 - 2003) US
Activist

K Sello Duiker(1974 - 2005 ) South African

Writer, whose debut novel, "Thirteen Cents", won the 2001 Commonwealth Writers Prize for best first book written by an African writer. He was a pioneer among Black South African writers in tackling the taboo subject of homosexuality, and male-to-male sexual violence.

Gary Downie(1925 - 2006 ) UK
Production Manager

Sodomy in history, January 19th

1851 — The "State of Deseret," better known as Utah, enacts a criminal code that makes sodomy illegal only between males, and sets the penalty at a prison term and/or fine in the discretion of the court.

1887 — Newspapers report an apparent blackmail ring in Greenville, Ohio that leads to seven indictments and one conviction for sodomy, but the Governor of Ohio pardons the one convicted.

1897 — The Missouri Supreme Court upholds a conviction for assault to commit sodomy of a St. Louis police officer who attempted sodomy with another male after threatening to arrest him unless he accompanied him to a lumber yard, where the attempt was made.

1900 — An Ohio newspaper reports that a man was arrested for sex with his 13-year-old male companion. Both claim that the younger partner’s mother "gave" him to the other.

1949 — The Illinois Supreme Court overturns the contempt citation of a man convicted of consensual sex with another man for refusing to be interviewed by a psychiatrist under the state’s psychopathic offender law. The trial court held him in contempt, then tried and jailed him after he would not give in.

1995 — The Idaho Court of Appeals rules that the sodomy law can not be applied to married couples.

Wednesday, 18 January 2012

Born this day

Archibald Alexander Leach, better known by his stage name Cary Grant, was an English actor who later took U.S. citizenship. Known for his transatlantic accent, debonair demeanor and "dashing good looks", Grant is considered one of classic Hollywood's definitive leading men.

Grant was married five times, but some, including Hedda Hopper and screenwriter Arthur Laurents, have said that Grant was bisexual, the latter writing that Grant "told me he threw pebbles at my window one night but was luckless". Grant allegedly was involved with costume designer Orry-Kelly when he first moved to Manhattan, and lived with Randolph Scott off and on for twelve years. Richard Blackwell wrote that Grant and Scott were "deeply, madly in love", and alleged eyewitness accounts of their physical affection have been published.

Danny Kaye(1913 – 1987) US
Actor / Singer / Dancer

Betty Berzon(1928 – 2006) US
Author / Psychotherapist

James Stoll (1936 – 1994) US Minister

Tony Holland (1940 – 2007) UK
Screenwriter/ Actor

Bill Lippert (1950 – ) US
Politician / Activist

Giz Watson(1957 – ) UK / Australian
Politician

Ace Hanson (1978 – ) US Porn

Died this day

Archduke Ludwig Viktor(1842 – 1919) Austrian
Aristocrat, the youngest brother of Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph. Despite his mother's attempts to arrange a marriage for him with Duchess Sophie Charlotte in Bavaria, youngest sister of Empress Elisabeth he remained a bachelor all his life. As a result of his very public homosexuality and transvestitism, and prolonged visits to the Central Bathhouse in Vienna, his brother Emperor Franz Joseph finally forbade him to stay in the capital.

Adolf von Hildebrand (1847 - 1921 ) German?
Sculptor / Architect

Gladys Bentley (1907 - 1960 ) US
Singer

Tom Dooley(1927 – 1961) US
Author

Chester Kallman (1921 - 1975 ) US
Poet / Translator

Sir Cecil Beaton(1904 - 1980 )
Photographer

Wilfrid Brambell(1912 - 1985) UK
Actor

Bruce Chatwin(1940 - 1989 ) UK
Journalist / Author

Leonor Fini (1907 - 1996) Argentine
Painter

Died this day

Sodomy in history, January 18th

1923 — The Virginia Supreme Court interprets the 1916 oral sex law literally and reverses the conviction of a man and woman arrested for oral sex, saying that only people of the same sex can be prosecuted under the law.

1949 — A California appellate court upholds the oral copulation conviction of a man over his contention that he "was just giving the kid a blow job."

I pretended to be somebody I wanted to be until finally I became that person. Or he became me

One of Hollywood's most distinguished actors, Cary Grant finished behind only Humphrey Bogart as the American Film Institute's second greatest male American screen legend. Grant starred in over 70 films and earned two Academy Award nominations for Best Actor. In 1970, Grant won the Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement.

Originally Archibald Alexander Leach, Grant was born in Bristol, England as the only child in an impoverished family. When Grant was nine years old, his mother was institutionalized.

Grant left school at age 14 and joined the Bob Pender comedy troupe, which helped develop his dancing and acrobatic skills. In 1920, the troupe stopped performing in small English towns and took a two-year tour of the US. Grant decided to stay in New York, and in 1927 he performed in the musical "Golden Dawn." In 1931, Grant moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in film. When he signed a 5-year contract with Paramount, Paramount had him change his name to Cary Grant.

Grant debuted in "This is the Night" (1932), but "The Awful Truth" (1937) made him a star. Handsome, witty and charming, Grant succeeded in creating a unique onscreen character. After starring in hits such as "Bringing up Baby" (1938), "Holiday" (1938), "Gunga Din" (1939), "Only Angels Have Wings" (1939), "His Girl Friday" (1940), "My Favorite Wife" (1940) and "The Philadelphia Story" (1940), as well as three Hitchcock films, Grant retired in 1966 as a mega-star.

While Grant married five women and fathered a child with his fourth wife, he was sexually active with men. Between marriages, Grant often resided with fellow actor Randolph Scott.

Born this day

Essayist, literary and cultural theorist, icon, and political activist. Sontag became aware of her bisexuality during her early teens and at 15 wrote in her diary, "so now I feel I have lesbian tendencies (how reluctantly I write this)." At 16, she had her first sexual encounter with a woman. Later in life, she said in an interview that she had been in love nine times - five women, four men.

Thursday, 12 January 2012

Born this day

Nobuko Yoshiya(1896 – 1973) Japanese

Novelist active in Taishō and Showa period Japan. She was one of modern Japan's most commercially successful and prolific writers, specializing in serialized romance novels and adolescent girls’ fiction, as well as a pioneer in Japanese lesbian literature.

Pierre Bernac(1899 – 1979) French

Singer (baritone)and teacher.

June Miller(1902 – 1979) US

Second wife of the novelist Henry Miller. June was bisexual,and briefly left Miller to live with the artist Jean Kronski in Paris. After returning to her marriage with Miller, she became involved in a flirtatious, and possibly sexual, relationship with the writer Anais Nin. Both writers (Miller and Nin)used June as the basis for some of their writing.

Barbro Alving(1909 – 1987) Swedish

Journalist and writer, a pacifist and feminist. Alving never married, but she had a daughter Maud Fanny Alving. When her daughter was only one year old, Alving began living with Anna Laura Sjöcrona. Alving and Sjöcrona lived together for over 40 years, until Alving's death.

Patsy Kelly (1910 – 1981) US

Actress / Singer / Comedian

Long John Baldry(1941 – 2005) UK

English and Canadian blues singer and a voice actor. In his early career in the 60's, the keyboard player in his band was Reg Dwight - later and better known as Elton John.

Baldry was openly gay even in the early 1960s when homosexuality was still criminalised and medicated. He later had a brief relationship with lead-guitarist of The Kinks, Dave Davies, and supported Elton John in coming to terms with his own sexuality.

Felipe Rose(1954 – ) US

Founding member and inspiration for the disco group the Village People. Rose was working as a dancer and a bartender in a gay New York Go-Go club, dressed as an Indian when he was discovered by French producer Jacques Morali and executive producer Henri Belolo and so became the first recruit for Village People. Both Jacques and Henri were fascinated by Rose's Indian attire and saw the potential in organizing a singing group where each individual would wear a different costume and have a particular identity.

In 2000, Rose began to work on his solo career.

Simon Russell Beale(1961 – ) UK

Actor and music historian. He has been described by The Independent as "the greatest stage actor of his generation." In the Independent on Sunday 2006 Pink List – a list of the most influential gay men and women in the UK – he was placed at number 30.

Chinese Gay Rights Pioneer,GLBT activist and attorney Zhou Dan came out to his friends in 1998 and the media in 2003. A champion of GLBT rights in China, Zhou writes articles on Chinese gay and lesbian Web sites. Although many GLBT Chinese use pseudonyms, Zhou uses his real name. After revealing his sexuality to a Shanghai newspaper in 2003, Zhou appeared across China in newspapers and magazines and on television. Earlier that year, he established the Shanghai Hotline for Sexual Minorities.

In 2004, Zhou attended Yale Law School's China Law Center as a visiting scholar. In 2006, he taught China's first graduate class on homosexuality at Fudan University in Shanghai.

Dreuxilla Divine(1974 – ) Puerto Rican
Drag Queen character on televisionand as a drag performer in Puerto Rico and eastern United States cities.

Kieron Richardson (1986 – ) UK
Actor, best known for playing the role of Ste Hay in Hollyoaks.

Saints Day:

St Aelred,
Patron of the LGBT Anglican group Integrity, and also widely regarded as a patron saint of male couples, on the strength of his book in praise of spirituality found in close friendship between male couples.

Died this day

Lorraine Hansberry(1930 - 1965) US
African American playwright and author of political speeches, letters, and essays.

Robert Friend (1913 - 1998) US/ Israeli
American-born poet and translator. After moving to Israel, he became a professor of English literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

artist, filmmaker, writer and arts administrator, who died in the Haiti Earthquake.

Born biologically female, McGarrell identified strongly with androgyny since childhood, and the transgender and queer (or radical queer) community as an adult. He began formally identifying as a male in 2003-04. He described himself as "a total gender mash up (beard, miniskirt, etc.)" and "as a non-passing transperson."

Sodomy in History, January 12th

1939 — The Georgia Supreme Court rules that two women can not be prosecuted for sodomy under state law.

1950 — The Pennsylvania Superior Court overturns a sodomy conviction because the trial judge told the jury that "the crimes as charged were actually committed by someone," and the appellate court feels that this prejudiced the jury.

1962 — The North Carolina Supreme Court upholds the right of the state to amend sodomy indictments.

1966 — The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals upholds the sentence of 18 months for consensual sodomy solely because it was within the 10-year statutory maximum.

1987 — The Louisiana Supreme Court upholds the "crime against nature" law provision covering solicitation for compensation and rejects a discriminatory enforcement argument.

1994 — The Texas Supreme Court dismisses a sodomy law challenge argued more than a year earlier. Three of the five members of the majority are up for reelection in 1994, and the majority claims it cannot make a constitutional decision on a criminal law in a civil case.

Died this day

Max Lorenz(1901 - 1975 )German
Singer

Sarah Aldridge (1911 - 2006) Brazilian / US
Author

Sodomy in history, January 11th

1908 — The Massachusetts Supreme Court, in interpreting the state’s law banning "unnatural and lascivious acts," says that it covers "any and all" unnatural and lascivious acts, but never defines the term.

Died this day

Sodomy in history, January 10th

1924 — A California appellate court rules that charging a person with "an assault to commit the crime against nature" is sufficient, because "every person of ordinary intelligence understands what that crimes is."

1930 — The Washington Supreme Court rules that one partner in an act of sodomy can be convicted even if the other is acquitted.

1952 — The District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals reverses the conviction of a man arrested in Franklin Square by police for solicitation. He is the seventh arrestee in a single night by just one officer. The Court feels that this proves entrapment.

1954 — In England, Peter Wildeblood, Michael Pitt-Rivers, and Lord Montagu are arrested on a sodomy charge in a case in which the government later admits that it used forged evidence. All three are political opponents of the Churchill Administration.

1961 — The New Jersey Supreme Court suspends, until he is "cured," an attorney who had sex with another male.

1966 — The District of Columbia Court of Appeals rules that a person accused of sodomy can be convicted on the lesser charge of an attempt.

1974 — The Missouri Court of Appeals refuses to consider sociological articles in a challenge to the state’s sodomy law

Died this day

Sodomy in history, January 9th

Sunday, 8 January 2012

Born this day

Winnaretta Singer(1865 - 1943 ) US. Heiress

Winnaretta Singer, Princesse Edmond de Polignac,was an American musical patron and heir to the Singer sewing machine fortune.

She had affairs with numerous women, never making attempts to conceal them, and never going for any great length of time without a female lover. She had these affairs during her own marriages and afterwards, and often with other married women. The affronted husband of one of her lovers once stood outside the princess's Venetian palazzo, declaring, "If you are half the man I think you are, you will come out here and fight me."

Richard Cromwell(1910 – 1960) US
Actor

Tharon Musser(1925 – 2009) US
Lighting Technician

Kerwin Mathews(1926 – 2007) US
Actor

Daniel Farson (1927 - 1997 ) UK.

British writer and broadcaster, who was a popular television personality and prominent public figure in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Graham Chapman (1941 – 1989) UK
Actor / Screenwriter

George Passmore(1942 – ) UK
Artist [Gilbert & George]

William Bonin(1947 – 1996) US
Serial Killer

David Bowie (1947 –) UK
Singer / Actor

Sir Adrian Fulford(1953 – ) UK
Judge

Nacho Duato(1957 – ) Spanish Dancer / Director

Noel Alumit (1970 – ) US Actor / Author / Activist

Charlie Condou(1973 – ) UK Actor

Rafe Judkins (1983 – ) US Reality TV [Survivor] / Screenwriter

Died this day

Arcangelo Corelli(1653 - 1713)Italian
Composer / Violinist

Paul Verlaine (1844 - 1896)French
Poet associated with the Symbolist movement, and considered one of the greatest representatives of the fin de siècle in international and French poetry.
In 1872 he left his wife for what became a stormy relationship with Arthur Rimbaud.

Saturday, 7 January 2012

Born this day

Author, anthropologist, and folklorist during the time of the Harlem Renaissance. Of Hurston's four novels and more than 50 published short stories, plays, and essays, she is best known for her 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, a book heralded as “one of the most poetic works of fiction by a black writer in the first half of the 20th century, and one of the most revealing treatments in modern literature of a woman’s quest for satisfying life.”

Professor of English language and literature in the Netherlands. He was also a novelist, who won the Ferdinand Bordewijk Prijs in 1987 for his novel Mystiek lichaam. This work attracted criticism in gay circles for its alleged homophobia, but Kellendonk was himself gay, and died of complications following AIDS a month after his 39th birthday.

Dionne Brand (1953 – ) Canadian

Poet, novelist, essayist and documentarian. She was named Toronto's third Poet Laureate in September 2009.

Rex Lee (1969 – ) US

Actor, best known for his role on the HBO original series, Entourage, as Lloyd Lee.

David Yost(1969 – ) US

Actor and producer known for his role of Billy Cranston on the television series Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie and Power Rangers Zeo.

Paul Ferreira(1973 – ) Portuguese / Canadian

Social democratic politician and one of the first openly gay politicians elected to provincial office in Canada.

Billy Merrell (1982 – ) US

Author and poet. He published his first book Talking in the Dark, a poetry memoir, with Scholastic in 2003. Together with David Levithan,he also co-edited "The Full Spectrum" a collection of queer writing for young readers, which won the 2007 Lammy in the Children's/Young Adult category .

Died this day

Napoleon Lapathiotis(1888 - 1944) Greek

Poet, who began writing and publishing poetry when he was just eleven.

Colin McPhee(1900 - 1964) Canadian

Composer and musicologist. He is primarily known for being the first Western composer to make an ethnomusicological study of Bali, and for the quality of that work. He also composed music influenced by that of Bali and Java decades before such world music–based compositions became widespread.

Richard Hunt(1951 - 1992) US

Puppeteer best known as a Muppet performer. Hunt's Muppet roles included Scooter, Beaker, Janice, Statler, and Sweetums. After Hunt died of AIDS-related complications, Episode 3136 of Sesame Street and the film The Muppet Christmas Carol were dedicated to his memory.

Larry Grayson(1923 - 1995) UK

Stand-up comedian and television presenter of the 1970s and early 80s. He is best remembered for hosting the BBC's popular series The Generation Game and for his high camp and English music hall humour.